By providing clinical trial participants with wearables, pharmaceutical companies can gather more accurate information that could help to streamline clinical trials and support patient care. Wearables may also help pharmaceutical companies to provide drug effectiveness data to insurance companies or governments that support their treatments are effective, therefore helping in reducing unnecessary prescriptions and lowering health care costs.

Fitbit and Apple watch are just two of the many activity trackers on the market today. Both are currently capable of tracking vital signs such as heart rate, exercise and movement levels. From a drug development and early drug safety capturing perspective, the real-time data input is more accurate than human memory and could provide valuable information.

How will the latest Fitbit lawsuit impact wearable use in pharmaceutical clinical trials and should pharmaceutical companies worry? Would this exclude it from the clinical settings, where it would have an enormous potential?

A journal club as defined by Milbrandt and Vincent (Critical Care 2004) is a group of individuals who meet regularly to evaluate critically the clinical application of recent articles in the medical literature. The first journal club meeting took place at McGill University in Montreal and dates back to 1875.

What is Twitter?

Twitter on the other hand is an information network made up of 140 – character messages called Tweets. It’s an easy way to discover the latest news related to subjects you care about. Currently according to STATISTA there are approximately 305 monthly million active users.

The Twitter social media platform lends itself very easily to professional interaction and the dissemination of information on a global scale. Healthcare professionals on Twitter have successfully identified and are succeeding in using this platform for journal club discussion.

Add Journal Clubs and Twitter together and what do you get?

A powerful interaction and a huge amount of engagement which is extremely valuable.

Increased number of participants which connects people of like interest, including the ability to interact directly with authors of scientific publications

Broader knowledge and experiences that take learning to a higher level

Fresh perspective on clinical issues with potential solutions from physicians from other institutions

PubMed (the searchable database of biomedical citations and abstracts free resource that provides access to MEDLINE) has dedicated a section entitled PubMed Commons Journal Club. In this section it lists traditional and virtual formats of journal clubs.

Here are just some examples of present day twitter journal clubs included in their list.

Or you can find a hashtag on your medical topic of interest on Symplur – Twitter Journal Club Hashtags. Select a hashtag of interest and then just type in that hashtag in Twitter to find the conversations.

Decide on a manageable frequency – keeping the Twitter Journal Club active and up to date but also identify an ideal frequency of journal club meetings. This will be vital in order to maintain the viability and sustainability.

Identify timely themes – identify hot topics? Policy issues?

Have a strategic pr in place (sending email reminders for example) – need to remind people of journal club time and date and if possible articles to read before hand.

Invite expert guests – this is a major driving force – having the ability to interact directly with authors of scientific publications would also be valuable.

Have a passionate moderator to encourage a collegial discourse.

Have a support network – feel free to reach out to participants for help and support – this will also grow your journal club and keep it sustainable.

Patient and persistence – reliability through full and well organized journal clubs will keep participates coming back.

Community practice is also being shared via scientific publications. The scientific publications based on experiences, collaborative learning and knowledge sharing allows to open channels of understanding among healthcare professionals.

Social Media, in particular Twitter, provides a potential for enormous international communication that has not been possible before now. Traditional Journal clubs in other fields can follow the examples of well established Twitter Journal Clubs to revitalize their journal clubs while at the same time foster and grow their international relationships.

What looking from the outside through your website tells me about your medical practice. Your first contact with people is your website. So marketing your website should be a top priority, especially if you are trying to grow your practice. Medical practices, like non profit research, medical and clinical institutes, find this kind of marketing is harder, because you are marketing to people who don’t have a relationship with you yet but could in the future.

Many medical practices tend to neglect their websites. You can’t afford to do that today.

According to Pew Research – The most commonly researched topics are specific diseases or conditions; treatments or procedures; and doctors or other health professionals.

I came across one medical practice website here in my local area. One word will sum it up, pitiful.So what do I look for in a medical practice website?

Overall appearance of website The general appearance of a medical practice website for me reflects what your corporate culture is like; for example innovative or traditional. It also helps me to decide to read further or just click away and move on to another website.

So here are just a few of the items I look for and they mainly focus on user experience features:

Design and usability

Ease of use – easy to locate information

Readability

Content – at first glance is it interesting– does it invite me to read more

Are you supporting different languages

Blogs & Blogging activity

How can I contact you – how can I make an appointment

Social media – I also have a separate list for social media activity (see below)

Mobile responsive – is your website mobile responsive – If yes, then you are telling me that you know today’s readers can access you from any device.

Social media friendly For me the presence of social media links will add value and relevance to your site. So, there are links to social media, but do you check the links to make sure they work? If they are not working then for me your site is a dead one. This leads me to question your professionalism.

Are your landing pages simple, yet effective on social media such as FaceBook, LinkedIn and YouTube with links on and to your home page.

I get very frustrated when I see clinical, medical and research organizations doing great things and their messages just don’t reach an audience. Why does this happen?

I came across a webinar on 3D printed models that help surgeons plan and prepare for complex operations, giving them a chance to practice on patient specific model before the actual operation. I was surprised to find out that this research is being done right here in my home state.

So how come I didn’t see it on my Twitter feed? I am following them. How come it didn’t come across those thousands of e-newsletters I receive everyday? Why didn’t my friends share it on FB?

So I did a little research on how this organization is using social media to communicate what they do. From the outside it looks like random posting and some publications, press releases, basic news articles, but I do not see any real content marketing. Non profit research, medical and clinical institutes need to develop content marketing and have a more content focused strategy.

Customers have high expectations for a quick response. 53% expect a brand to respond to their Tweet & demand that response comes in less than an hour, according to the Lithium-commissioned study by Millward Brown Digital. The bottom line is you need to respond in under 2 hours.

If it is a complaint then 72% of the people expect a brand to respond within 1 hour. People who complain expect a quick response.

What are the consequences of poor response times? 38% feel more negative about the brand and/or company and 60% will take unpleasant actions to express their dissatisfaction.

Timely responses to Twitter, on the other hand are rewarded & remember these exchanges are occurring in the public domain, so it will have a domino effect on followers. When a brand responds in a timely manner on Twitter:

47% of people recommend the brand through social media

43% of people encourage friends and family to buy from the brand / company

42% of people praise the company through social media

38% of people are receptive to advertisements

34% of people buy more of the company’s products

It is necessary to stress the importance of building trusted relationships with customers on Twitter. Twitter generates a sense of community.It can help to raise brand awareness and allow brands and consumers to interact in real time.

It’s time for hospitals & medical research centers to be creative, bold and fresh into how they can use social media to engage with the public. #heartTXlive is a perfect example, in my opinion of just that. The surgical team at Baylor University Medical Center (@BaylorHealth) tweeted one patient’s heart transplant story in real time. This is raising awareness through the power of social media.

Another sports commercial? No it’s a commercial for NYU Langone Orthopedics. Everyday “sports athletes” carrying on as usual in NYC combined with a great tune. They know that NYU Langone Orthpedics is there if they need it.

Pharma companies must recognize the new decision-making power of the consumer and develop better ways to engage with them and deliver a new customer experience. Today’s consumer has higher expectations and pharmaceutical companies will need to meet these new demands. Patients / consumers are on number of digital channels, pharma will need to identify and pilot different approaches in order to reach these patients / consumers.

I fully agree with Dr. Todd Johnson, CEO of Noble.MD statement: “Apps that face the patient but are designed to solve pharma-company business needs should never exist.”

In the future patients’ brand loyalty will decrease and cost consciousness will increase.

Carefully designed clinical trial data will no longer be the sole source of outcome data and therefore pharma will lose control over it’s value stories.

Pharma companies will need to identify and understand which digital / technology solution will provide the most value for their business. A fundamental question to confront will be choosing between developing digital solutions in-house or through partnerships and third parties.

About Me

Exploring and understanding how #bigpharma can innovate and build authentic relationships in the social media space.
I decided to leave the corporate world and pursue my passion for social media. I write articles and Tweet about pharmaceutical companies and their use of social media. I am based in Buffalo, NY.